Requiem in Snow
by YamiKatie
Summary: Having passed out while running after Clare, who is hellbent on killing Priscilla, a dying Jeane winds up talking to Raki about why her life is not her own, and why only she can save Clare from becoming an Awakened One. Warning: plenty of blood, obviously


A/N: This is a one-shot in which I imagine that, instead of picking up Raki and running to the mountain to Clare, Jean passes out before she completes the journey. This grants her and Raki a few minutes together to talk about stuff. Hints of Jeane/Clare, with maybe a little bit of Raki/Clare thrown in for an understated love triangle. Written in two parts - Jeane's personality went hideously wrong at first, so I scrapped maybe 1500 words and rewrote it two nights later, after having watched the anime again for a memory refresh. (And lots of crying).

Has a hell of blood in. You know these Claymore - they can bleed enough for five people. Tried to actually mention the "b" word as little as possible though, for effectiveness' sake.

Requiem in Snow

Blood streams the air as she runs. She has already moved several metres more before it splashes the ground behind them like red confetti, carelessly tossed. It grows thicker with every metre they cover, trickle widening to a gush that is pumped out relentlessly with every throb of her weakening body. He can feel it shuddering beneath him, thrust as he is over her shoulder in an unromantic fireman's hold, and the smell fills his nose to the point where he has to stop himself from gagging.

Her pace has slowed, driven and determined as she is, and her breathing is snatched and furious at her own weakness. Body juddering almost constantly now, like a machine on the verge of breaking down. He knows well this feeling, of finding out that your mental resolve can never match that of your body's for long, and can do nothing but stay quiet and still, hoping that he can take up as little of her strength as possible.

Another shake, and for a clear moment the dampness gluing them together, which has been growing steadily since they began, seems to soak him and her and the air around them, and then he falls through the bloody air and to the ground.

………………

He watches her wake, up to the point where her eyes snap open - such a suggestion of vitality, and one that he wishes he could believe - and then snatches his gaze away, not wanting to be caught staring.

She is sure for a moment that she is dead - why else would she be lying like this, horizontal and disarmed? But her sword is laid before her in a well-meaning fashion, and the fire dancing ahead is friendly, if ultimately useless. Her left hand, still clasped to her stomach, is damp, and after a moment she remembers why.

Jeane sat up sharply, and there was a squirting sound. The ground was now painted crimson, she noted in irritation, as if someone else had done it. Guts were tumbling out, and she scooped them up and packed them back in, not really caring if everything made it back into the right place or not.

"Claire. Where's Clare? Is she safe?"

Raki's reply, when it finally came, was muted. "I don't know."

She stiffened, turning her head sharply from side to side. "What happened? Is everyone-"

"I don't know!" Raki interrupted, voice now shrill. He could feel his nervousness at her reaction building up again, but it seemed to have been concentrated into something stronger this time. "I don't know what is happening over there."

"Over…there?"

He didn't realise how cruel his silence was to her until he looked up again and saw her thin face almost wild with distress. Blood was trickling through her fingers; she didn't seem to have noticed, let alone care.

"We never made it," she whispered. As the realisation hit home she became aware of the state of her own body again, of organs glistening between the gaps in her fingers, and how cold she suddenly was.

Raki was watching her anxiously, eyes darting nervously to her face and then settling on her lower body, trying to skirt the area in between. "You passed out. Almost at the top of the mountain. Your…your wound, it opened up…I was going to try and do something to help, but I didn't have anything to use as a bandage…"

Hoarsely: "Where are we now?"

"Near the top still," he informed her, relieved that she appeared to be taking it so well. "A little way to the left. A sheltered area. I sort of carried you for a bit, then I had to stop…" Heaving the form which had looked so lanky and yet so, so heavy behind him. He hadn't been sure what to try and hold - legs was too humiliating, with her face in snow; the torso was too slippery in his hands. He had settled on arms because it was the least embarrassing to admit to later, even though her unpleasantly floppy fingers stroked his with every pull of her body, and his hands were soon streaked with red. The worst had been how she had seemed to disintegrate with every heave, trailing bits and pieces behind them so that it had been more like dragging a piece of bloody meat than a human being. And it was ambiguous as to whether she was still physically human anyway, but that hadn't meant that it wasn't embarrassing to see her torn and bleeding breasts stirring up and down with every movement.

"Your intentions were kind."

He glanced up, startled, and found her eyes resting on him thoughtfully. "To helped by a human…and such a human…"

"It's noth-wait, what are you doing?" He jumped up, suddenly bitterly aware of the easy energy summoned to execute such a movement, when she was still struggling to sit up. "Why are you getting up?"

She looked surprised at the question. "I have to go."

"But you…"

He trailed off as Jeane cautiously put out her hands and attempted to raise herself up without twisting her upper body. Two bright, shining red handprints were left in the snow. He saw her face twist with the effort of not crying out as there came another squirting sound and her already open wound gaped at Raki like a huge red mouth. One hand to her stomach, and she lurched upright, face flushed with grim triumph. "Good."

Her situation appeared to be anything but, as Raki opened his mouth to say. But then, witnessing how the brief pleasure in her eyes had already dimmed, he closed it again, deciding that pointing out such obvious facts would not help her.

"Can I…why don't you lean on me? Save at least some of your strength?"

"Thank you," she said, and he knew she meant it. "But I want to cover the last part of the journey myself. I may not be able to run to Claire, but I _will _walk." Bitter pride laced her voice like a drug, to help her for now, but doomed eventually to backfire on its user.

He could find nothing to say to that; but then she took a careful step forward, testing the ground, and suddenly he found that he was viciously fighting back words of protest. Even after one step he could see her leg muscles trembling violently, like threads pulled tight and ready to snap. Her legs to him seemed impossibly brittle, as if nature had never intended them to support the weight of even her strength-starved body; he imagined that they were glass, and that cracks were running down them as well as blood.

He knew he should be feeling admiration but instead all he could find was a conviction that this was wrong, that no person should have to do this to themselves. He tried to call out: _Please, please stop,_ but all that issued from his indifferent throat was a feeble croak, barely discerned even by himself.

He ran instead, leaping as easily as a snow-hare over the twenty or so metres that separated them. Already her pace had slowed, from trudging to shuffling.

"Stop this."

Her face hardened: clenched, set as firm as a figurine from a mould, which cannot twist itself into any other shape. Briefly, she lunges her body forward, trying to get out of earshot.

"You're killing youself!" Raki shouted above the wind, which snatched his words and tossed them, laughing, away. He wasn't sure if she had heard him, and ploughed relentlessly after her.

"Why won't you stop?" Having caught up, he is able to lower his voice a little, and touches her daringly, earnestly, on the shoulder. "Don't do this to yourself. Do you think Clare-"

She thrust his hand away and, with her bloody one, slapped him open-handed across the face.

Gaping stupidly, Raki staggered back a pace and half-fell into a pile of snow. The sky above them both was grey and wind-torn, and for a stunned second it careered crazily across his vision like a big blurry newspaper, obstructing his view. Wind slammed into his eardrums, and when he got up it was to find himself slightly dazed by it all. Jeane's blood dripped patiently from his chin, decorating his shirt.

She was still standing, a shaky silhouette against the fragmented sky. Her chest was heaving, and her eyes were slightly wide, as if in fear or disbelief.

His first clear thought was wondering if he had hurt her, before a sullen voice inside muttered that she had hurt _him._ He picked his way across the snow to her, saw her eyeing him warily like a wild animal in case he tried to grab her again, and spread out his hands in a gesture of reasonableness. "Look-"

She raised her sword, and pointed it at him. "Stop trying to dissuade me. You have no right to. You were kind to me, and I will repay you for it, but currently I have a more urgent debt to settle. Do you understand?"

He understood, a bit, but he wasn't happy about it. "I…I'm not trying to stop you. I just think you should rest for a few minutes first…your wound is open again, and if it-"

"It doesn't matter." Her sword-arm was beginning to tremble. "If I can make it to Clare, then that's all that matters."

Raki wanted to tell her that he admired her resolve, admired her in a way which he hadn't wanted to a few minutes ago, but decided that she might interpret it as patronising. "If that's so, then a few minutes won't make any difference, will it? You could still-"

"It could make all the difference for Clare," Jeane said quietly.

They both stood silently, neither able to think of anything else to say. Then, the Claymore lowered her sword and thrust it back into the sheath across her back. She had to reach awkwardly across to do so, and Raki realised that she had not held the weapon with her dominant arm just now, but rather with her left. Then she resumed her stumbling gait across the snow, and he promptly followed. He had to walk almost painfully slowly to avoid overtaking her, and when she stumbled again and again, it was all he could do not to grab her shoulder and make her lean on him, to make some sort of use of him. Instead he was like a constant reminder of her own weakness, a damning contrast of how much strength she had lost.

Between harsh, rasping breaths, Jeane told him, "You can come with me, and that's fine, because you want to help Clare too. But if you keep obstructing me, I'm going to have to kill you. I don't want anyone getting in my way."

Raki wiped her blood from his face with the back of his sleeve, staining it a dull russet. "And I don't want to get in your way. I just want to help."

She didn't answer him. Her sword was out again, but this time it had been downgraded to a walking-stick, a more trusty limb than the ones she had already, and with each step she would plunge it into the white expanse beneath them, before tugging it out with the next. Again, he noted that she was using her left arm to do so, while the right one grimly gripped her stomach.

With the wind howling in her face and plastering her lank fringe across her eyes, Jeane could barely see. But that was fine, for she had no need of sight; she knew she had only to continue on upwards, and the mountain that would loom out of the darkness like a gloomily welcoming face would be there, waiting. She could feel the boy marching beside her, his silence reluctant and resentful, his heartbeat strong and hot beneath his clothes. Yanking her sword yet again out of the snow, she gritted her teeth and said nothing.

Raki was beginning to ponder what this…(Woman? Claymore? Monster?)…person was actually intending to do once they reached the dormant volcano, where even now Clare was certain to be battling the youma that they had seen her flee after. Her gait had been more like flying than running, a monstrous speed powered by Awakened legs that she was somehow still just able to control. And this…girl, this girl that they both loved, this Claymore and him, was she even still alive? Or…human at all?

He unintentionally slowed down as this preoccupation began to eat up all of his mental resources again - although he had only resumed worrying for a few moments, it was time enough for all his previous worries to all come hurrying to the surface of his mind, each one eager to be the first one to set him off on the endless road of anxiety again. And time enough, too, for Jeane to finally struggle ahead of him. She wasn't walking anymore, he recognised; it was more of a stagger, stuttering and painful to watch. She was leaning almost completely on her sword now, despite having only covered really a few more metres, and was bent almost double, almost falling…

"Hey!"

As he watched, she folded tiredly and noiselessly into the perfectly white ground like a shrivelling plant returning to the earth. Her face was at once buried in dirt. She lay there silently and calmly, without fuss; after a few seconds, it became clear that she was no longer conscious.

He hurried forward. In her white clothes she blended strangely well with the snow, although there were already faint tendrils of red threading their way out from underneath her like spider legs. A faint patch on her back showed that the wound which was killing her extended all the way through her stomach and out the other side. He crouched down, ankle-deep in snow, and turned her over, perhaps too roughly.

At once he was confronted again with the brutal hole in her stomach, from which the organs glistened and seemed to be actively trying to worm their way out like thick scarlet snakes. Filth coated the torn edges - even if she were to somehow get the wound closed again, the thin reek told him that it would certainly be infected. His abrupt moving of her had aggravated what appeared to be a half-hearted regeneration process - red clots tumbled out and pelted the snow like small bullets. Then there was a gush, and suddenly a big red lake around them both. Raki let out an exclamation, not sure how to even try and stop the bleeding - if it could even be stopped. He had nothing but a shirt and, over that, the heavy cloak keeping him warm - then, recalling her constant, relentless shivering, at once tore it from his shoulders. Now what?

He decided to try and wake her, and perhaps move her a few metres, away from all this - but it seemed so cruel to break her few moments of involuntary rest, when she had nothing but pain to wake to. But she would be so furious if she knew that he was considering letting her lie here for the night - and already she was stirring, so the outcome was decided, if reluctantly. Raki could almost believe that she was so driven that she would force herself back from unconsciousness just to see Clare once again. And, if so, who was he to stop her? He knelt by her shoulder, wary of touching her just in case he got slapped again.

Her thin lips twitched, mouthing a name. Silver eyes opened slowly, not taking much in. For a moment her face was still calm and smooth, and then the strained expression returned, tightening her mouth into a narrow slit. She was looking at Raki now.

"I didn't make it…Again." A sigh parted her lips for a moment. Then resolve knitted her pale eyebrows closer together, and he saw her clench and unclench her bruised hands, ready to try and sit up again. A brief, brutal thrust, and her torso was lifted up out of the snow. At first he marvelled that she could still summon such strength, but then he saw a convulsion ripple her lean frame like a storm rippling a sapling. He was shoved unceremoniously to one side, and she began to vomit blood into the snow, body pushing it out with such force that he could not understand how she had any left. Her eyes were wide in shock, and he could hear snatched, frantic breathing above the wind.

At last, after too long, it stopped. It had been an hour or more since she had last done it, and he had taken it as a sign that maybe, maybe she had been healing as well as she maintained she had, but now he was wondering if she had just been holding it back down.

Blood trickled rudely from her mouth; Jeane's hand fumbled its way up and tried to wipe it away, but only succeeded in smearing it into a wonky half-circle. She gave up, and her hand flopped tiredly back down, thin fingers trailing reddish dirt across her white clothes, which were already stained with varying shades of scarlet. This made her look down at herself, at her torn body.

Raki expected her to give a brave smile, through which worry would still be visible but he would pretend not to see it. Instead, she gave a matter-of-fact shrug, though a rather limp one, which was more a half-hearted rearranging of her shoulder blades than anything more energetic, and said, "I need to get up now, it seems. Would you help me?"

"Of course." He knelt down, sinking even deeper into smooth, shiny snow. It glistened in the last of the sunlight, and with a queasy twist from his own organs he was reminded of having seen that same glistening a few moments previously. "How would you like me to…?"

She moved her left arm towards him - he was taken aback, having expected the other one, and as the left was on the wrong side he had to crunch round her to get to the other side of her body. When he lifted his feet up, he noticed that they were soaked in red, as if he were wearing shiny new shoes. "Okay." He curled her arm around his neck, and saw her right hand move to clutch at her stomach. "Ready?"

"Of course."

He waited for her to begin to rise before lending his strength and pulling her the rest of the way up, heedful this time of the necessity of doing it gently. In spite of his efforts, he saw her gag, and hastily lowered her back down. She retched again and then started coughing blood all over the snow. Jean wiped her mouth ruefully, and then turned back to him. "Seems like now I'm ready."

Raki had sat down. At once his legs and bottom were drenched in slush. "I'm not so sure."

She had been kneeling forward; at this, however, she turned carefully to face him. "Don't continue this."

"I…I just think if you rested for literally a few minutes…"

"Why?"

Taken by surprise, he had no answer prepared. He couldn't stop focusing on her hair, slicked with bright stripes, smearing patterns against the side of her face. Or her legs, still trembling, thin red ribbons winding their way down thin white calves. Or-

"What difference will it make if I rest?" Jeane was continuing quietly. Her tone was practical, matter-of-fact. "I want to see Clare. What does it matter what condition I am in when I do so?"

"Do you think Clare wants to see you like this?" Raki took a deep, quick breath, and, before she could interrupt, asked the partially-said question which had earned him a slap earlier. "Do you think Clare wants you to risk your life just to get to her a few minutes earlier? You really think she will care that much if you take a little longer, and yet live so much longer because of it?"

He stared accusingly at her, and was confounded to see her smiling. "…That she will care…I don't think she will. I know, you see, that Clare doesn't care. About me. But…" Now her smile became a little nervous, a little daring. "But I care about her. And I want to show how much by giving this life, this life that Clare lent to me, back to her. I need to show her that I repay my debts."

Raki's mouth moved wordlessly. Jeane continued, very quietly: "So, it doesn't matter what condition this life is in when I reach her, as long as it's still human. I can return it to her, and pay back my debt. Then, she can look upon me as an equal. Until then, I am below her. Until them, I am not worthy of her caring about me."

She broke off, face slightly flushed, cheeks tinged slightly with a red that for the first time was not that of blood. Her expression had softened, and she seemed almost happy, lost in the future.

Raki was lost too, for a moment, emotion pounding the length of his body and back again, until he felt himself to be one huge pulse, beating out a low, shallow fury. "To…to value the world so little…how can you? Life is about more than paying back debts! And when Clare saved your life in whatever way she did, she didn't mean for you to plan to kill yourself in order to even the score!"

Jeane's smile had lost its serenity, but was still just discernable. "I know. But…"

"Then why? Why go through this?"

"I'm dying," she said calmly.

"I…I know." The words felt blocked.

"Good. I did wonder…you seemed to believe I was regenerating so well."

"Stupid, to want to believe you," Raki muttered.

Jeane began to rake the crust of dirt and blood from her fringe. "Well, I was."

"Wha-"

"And I still could, I suppose. At least for a while…But this is a fatal wound. I understand that. Therefore, why waste youki trying to heal it and prolong my life a few more hours, when I could instead use that youki to help Clare? It's…uneconomical."

"We're talking about lives here!" he exclaimed. "Your life! If there's any chance of saving it, you of all people should want to try! You're…you're being fatalistic…and-and-arrogant! You're saying that Clare would prefer to be saved by you and what is left of your strength rather than any of the other Claymore, who could actually do so and live! You just want your death to mean something more than anyone else's could ever-"

"Is that wrong?"

"Yes. To want to die in a better way than anyone else…as if people ever usually get the choice!"

"But I have the choice. I get to choose where, and to a certain degree when and how. I like that…"

Raki didn't know what else he could say. "I…suppose it isn't up to me to tell you what to do with your life. I can only offer an opinion."

Jeane nodded, smiling faintly. "And I am free to consider that opinion, and thank you for it, and then completely disregard it…Clare, I think, would do the same." She laughed weakly to herself, and Raki saw scarlet trickling down the side of her mouth again. Jeane coughed into her hand, wiped on the snow without looking at it, and then folded it back onto her stomach. "Shall we go?"

"Wait." Raki leaned forward, and heard the snow crunch under his weight. "What happened to your arm? I noticed that you don't use it to hold your sword…"

"Oh. It's not interesting…"

"Please show me."

She gave him a wry glance, as if to emphasise that he was wasting his time again, and drew back the right side of her cloak. He followed the outline up and his eyes widened upon seeing her wasted upper arm. The muscle stood out as an overlong spiral coiled around her arm like a snake, as if it had been stretch out and then wound back round instead of being tucked back in properly.

"What…is that?" _It looks horrible. _He peered closer, before shuddering away.

She was indifferent to his shock. "An unfortunate side-effect of battle. You know, perhaps, that each warrior has a trademark technique? Mine is rotating the muscle of my sword arm multiple times so that it uncoils with unmatched speed." Her voice was briefly coloured with pride. "Number three, Galatea, has confirmed that it produced the strongest strike movement of all warriors."

"Multiple times…how many?"

Her voice grew pondering. "Twenty…twenty three-ish. Sometimes I manage more."

"You're a masochist."

"Not really. I just count the rotations, and it helps me focus. Besides, it feels good when it uncoils. Like a whip."

Raki shook his head in disbelief. "So does it always become…like this?" He indicated, trying not to look.

"No, no. I overused it a bit today, that's all. It usually goes back to normal on its own in time. I just don't want to spare any strength returning it, when I'm not going to be using it for a while." Her tone was quite casual, quite decided. "Shall we leave?"

"Oh…yes." He fumbled into a better position, offering her his arm. She took it silently, a slight grimace touching the corners of her mouth as her body shifted. He felt her lock her body against his, and wobbly managed to pull them both upright. The familiar dampness returned as he crushed her body against his, trying to support her as much as possible. It didn't help that she was taller, nor that she wore armour.

"Hurry, we have to hurry. Clare is waiting."

……………

"Jeane! _Jeane!"_

Raki knows her name now. He won't forget it, because Clare is screaming it out again and again.

"What are you doing? Get away! Save yourself!"

Jeane turns her head. Her fringe is filthy, just like before, although now the mess matting it together is all blood. She looks at Raki, and her voice is low and effortful. "I said…that I would pay you back…for helping me. To pay back two debts…today is a good day." She gives him a nod, and all he can do is gape at her. "I told you…before…that my wound was fatal. I lied then. But…" She chokes out weak laughter; "I'm not lying now."

"Jeane! Dammit! Dammit!" Clare is almost groaning through the thick youki choking her voice. "You…"

Jeane takes the bladed limb that bisects her body, and with both hands begins to pull herself further into it, and closer to Clare. At last she is close enough to touch her face with adoring, unworthy hands. "Clare…I came…I came to give this life back to you…"

"It's not mine!" the awakened Claymore sobs at her. "It's yours! Take and go, Jeane! Please!"

"I…_want_ to…" Jeane's voice is soft and content. "Here…take it back…" She pulls herself closer, close enough to bring them both into a bloody embrace, Clare howling at her to stop. Crimson explodes from her, coating them both. "I…did it…" She starts to stroke Clare's face, streaking it red. "You have to…synchronise with my youki now…turn back…"

"Jeane!"

"Now…" Youki burst from her. Jeane's lips are just touching Clare's, very lightly. The force is ripping her body apart from the inside, but her eyes are still open: reverant, and happy.

Then the process is over, and Raki's face lights up as he sees the delicate face of his Clare…but it's twisted in agony and she's clutching Jeane's body to her and screaming out, "Why?" over and over again, and all he can think about is that there is blood on her face and that she hasn't even noticed.

………….

A/N: This is really my way of acknowledging all of the pain Jeane went through, and the intensity of the emotions driving her: by making myself re-live it through writing it. I was pleased with the way that in the anime Clare is weeping so much over Jeane's death - although not as hard as me - as it seemed like for once the death of one of my favourite characters has been properly acknowledged. (starts crying all over again) Gah, am such a softie. Well, not exactly: I just got really into it all. And I just loved Jeane so much…Sigh.


End file.
